Terex Superlift 3800 lifts dockside cranes in Mannheim

Steil Kranarbeiten has used a Terex Superlift 3800 lattice boom crawler crane to lift two dockside cranes for assembly at the Port of Mannheim, Germany, on behalf of Kranwerke Mannheim.

Steil was one of the first companies to buy this crane model, which now goes under the name of CC 3800-1 as a result of the Demag brand being reintroduced.

Before the assembly process, the crawler was used to load one of the massive crane girders at the Speyer Port in order for it to be shipped to Mannheim. The crane demonstrated its flexibility when loading the 78m-long, 105t crane girder onto a pontoon, as the required radius could increase by up to 3m if the load was lifted from the heavy goods vehicle onto the pontoon at low tide.

“That’s why we planned with a variable Superlift counterweight of 65 to 125t. That allowed the crane to work flexibly with a radius of 28 to 30m and made sure that the job would still be feasible even at low tide,” explained Steil project manager Sebastian Sehl.

Once the pontoon arrived at the Port of Mannheim, the Steil team was ready to erect the two container cranes at the shipyard.

The hinged legs for dockside crane 1 were erected with the help of two assist cranes, one with 200t caparity and the other with 130t. At the same time, the fully-assembled, 241t crane girder was lifted with the Superlift 3800, which was set up with a 54m-long main boom, 50t central ballast, 165t superstructure counterweight, and 54t Superlift counterweight for the job.

This configuration enabled it to pick up the fully assembled crane girder, lift it 30m, and then move it about 15m. With a radius of 16 to 18m, the crane then lifted the girder to a height of 32m and turned it so that it was parallel to the dockside crane’s hinged legs, which could then be bolted to both of the dockside crane’s bogies and to the girder.

After this, the two assist cranes were moved so that they could bring the fixed legs into position for installation on the bogies. “During all this work, the crane had to hold the heavy crane girder in the required position without the girder swinging back and forth, which definitely was made more difficult by the wind hitting them, but never to the point that it became critical,” Sehl said.

The next step was to bring the 15t trolley onto the runway girder. Two 200t cranes were used for this job.